V. T. Hamlin's Early Work

Comic of various student groups in humerus situations

The Eclipse Yearbook.
Perry, Iowa: Perry High School, 1920.

High School Yearbook

The high school yearbook of Dorothy Hamlin, nee Stapleton, from 1920 contains some early illustrations and comics by V.T. Hamlin, aka "Snic." Hamlin once said he "always drew because [he] couldn't help it." At the age of eleven, he first drew the character that later became Alley Oop, and he published his first cartoons in the Perry Daily Chief four years later.

Cartoon drawing of a cat shaking their fist at a car

The Panther Kitten.
(n.d.)

Cartoon drawing of a man in overalls

Truth: Save it From Abuse. 1924.

Early Cartoons

Hamlin's first regular, paying work as a cartoonist was in the mid-1920s for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. There he drew The Hired Hand of WBAP, a radio promotion, and The Panther Kitten, a daily sports comic chronicling the fate of the Texas baseball league's Fort Worth Panthers (now known as the "Cats"). Note both characters' resemblances to Oop. Hamlin cites these as a couple of early versions of the caveman.

Four "Flip & Flap" comics strips

Flip and Flap
nd (1928?)

Flip and Flap

Flip and Flap was another early strip of Hamlin's, featuring a pretty flapper girl and her boyfriend. It was a brief experiment that was never picked up, but these drwaings show what may be the origins of Ooola's beauty and Alley Oop's oddly-shaped legs.